


Through The Cracks

by borderlinecritical (skulls_and_stripes)



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Anxiety Disorder, Autism, Autism Spectrum, Autistic Pearl (Steven Universe), Autistic Peridot (Steven Universe), Bullying, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Self-Harm, Social Anxiety
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-24 18:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21342991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skulls_and_stripes/pseuds/borderlinecritical
Summary: Everyone's curious about the new student that transferred to Diamond Academy, the most prestigous all-girls school in the area, a few weeks ago. Pearl says that the girl from her math class thinks she's mute. Amethyst thinks she's the local bully's new target. Lapis heard that she has two moms. Peridot loudly declares that she has future vision.Garnet can hear it all. She's painfully aware of every rumour. She puts on a facade of confidence, but on the inside, she's terrified of all social interaction. Bullied relentlessly by Jasper and ignored by everyone else, she stumbles through high school, trying to survive and maybe make a few friends along the way.
Relationships: Garnet & Ruby & Sapphire (Steven Universe), Garnet & Stevonnie (Steven Universe)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 48





	1. Introduction

The bell rings, and everyone breaks off into their generally-accepted groups. Nobody ever decided during the first weeks of high school that they would sit with the same people every lunch period; it just became an unbreakable habit. The popular kids sit with the popular kids, the nerds and goody-two-shoes sit with the nerds and goody-two shoes, the rebellious rulebreakers sit with the rebellious rulebreakers, and the outcasts sit with the outcasts.

There are always students that slip through the cracks, who don’t fit into any of the high school cliques. At best, they’re on speaking terms with a lot of people but not particularly liked by anyone; at worst, they’re bullied relentlessly except by their closest friends.

And these students, one way or another, find each other. When there’s only one table not occupied by a generally accepted clique, the lonely students sit there and form their own group. They usually don’t have a single class together, and unlike the other cliques, the only thing bonding them is their loneliness.

Every other clique is brought together by a shared interest -- whether that interest be schoolwork, romance, drugs, or their favourite TV show. It makes sense that people that have things in common are drawn to each other, after all. Birds of a feather flock together.

Until the cat comes.

But those that sit together because there’s nowhere else for them to sit, that become best friends because they have nobody else, are bonded by something stronger than feathers. They might not have any classes together. They might not have any shared interests. They might have completely different attitudes to school, schoolwork, and life in general. But their loyalty to each other is something few high school students can achieve, and that’s what bonds them.

Even the girls that are bullied relentlessly by their classmates can find friends. Even the teenagers that have been rejected by everyone at the school can find strength in each other.

So when there’s someone that’s such an outcast even the outcasts aren’t sure whether to approach her, well, you can’t be surprised that there are rumours.

The skinny girl with short ginger hair nibbles on a sandwich, wiping away the crumbs that land on the table. She’d like a tray, but those only come with cafeteria food, and her frankly absurd dietary requirements necessitate bringing food from home. “Peridot from my math class says she’s in her robotics class,” she whispers, periodically glancing at the girl she’s talking about. “Apparently nobody’s ever seen her talk. Peridot thinks she’s mute.”

Across the table from her is a slightly less skinny girl with tan skin and bobbed blue hair. She’s wearing a dark blue jacket to hide the fact that she has a crop top underneath it in a blatant show of disregard for the dress code rules. She raises a slightly blue eyebrow. “Isn’t Peri still hanging out with the cunt?” After a pause, she adds, “No offense, Amethyst.”

“None taken,” answers the girl next to her, a short dark-skinned girl with unruly purple hair. “You’re not exactly wrong. I think Peri’s just too scared to ditch her.”

The blue-haired girl shrugs. “Eh, can’t really blame her for that. It took me ages to actually leave.”

“Yeah, J’s a bitch like that.” Amethyst lowers her voice. “Speaking of J, I think that girl’s her newest target. She keeps coming home and ranting about how annoying she is, J has her for PE.”

“I hope she’s okay,” mumbles the redheaded girl, wincing sympathetically. She spares a glance over at the subject of their conversation, who is still eating alone. “Do you know why Jasper’s targeting her?”

“Uh, I think she’s gay.”

The redheaded girl pales slightly. “How do you know?”

“I dunno, I’ve been hearing the word “dyke” a lot when J’s ranting. I try to tune most of it out. I … kinda only hang out with her when Peri’s coming over.”

“Does Peri even hang out with the cunt when she visits you?” asks the blue-haired girl. “Or is she just there for you?”

“Mostly me, honestly. Can’t blame her.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to visit the cunt. But I’m pretty sure that she --” she gestures to the girl sitting alone -- “isn’t actually gay herself. If the cunt’s being a homophobic bitch to her, it’s probably because she has two moms.”

“Seriously?” chokes Amethyst. “How the hell do you know that?”

“You know the woman that picked her up on the first day? The blonde one?” When they both nod, she continues, “She used to be my mom’s coworker and my mom told me she was a lesbian.”

“Damn,” mutters Amethyst. “Thanks, Lapis. Knew I could count on you for the deets.”

Their conversation is rather rudely interrupted by a fashion disaster slamming her tray on the table. She has blonde hair that sticks up in impossible ways, a green triangular hairclip being the only thing keeping her bangs in check. She’s wearing a green t-shirt with a yellow diamond in the centre, and a dark green skirt with green tights. There are more yellow diamond symbols on her knees. Her yellow-tinted glasses are the most obnoxious thing imaginable.

“I think she has future vision!” she declares loudly in a nasally voice.

“Peri!” hisses Lapis as several pairs of eyes turn to stare at the table.

Peridot blushes when she realises how loud she was. “Sorry,” she mumbles, taking a seat next to the redheaded girl. “Anyway, Jas is at football practice so I can sit with you guys. Nobody tell her.”

The three previous occupants of the table stare at each other in stunned silence. Amethyst is first to break it. “Dude, are we talking about the same girl?”

“Garnet?” clarifies Peridot, pointing over at the subject of their conversation. When the others nod, she says, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure she has future vision.”

The redheaded girl stares at her in shock. “You can’t just make a claim like that and not present your evidence!”

“Calm down, Pearl, I’m getting there.” She shoves a forkful of cafeteria food into her mouth and quickly swallows before continuing. “Jas, obviously. There was this one time she tried to slam Garnet’s head against the locker, but Garnet ducked and Jasper just hurt her hand.”

“...That’s it?” asks Lapis with a raised eyebrow.

“That’s not all!” says Peridot dramatically. “In robotics class, she always starts doing the work as soon as we get the computers, before the teacher’s even explained it! How could she do that without future vision?”

“...Maybe because you get an automated email every time the teacher posts more classwork online?” suggests Pearl.

“Ugh, who checks their emails anyway?”

“I do,” says Lapis. “I’ve been trying to get a job lately and I’m waiting for a response.”

“I’m too lazy to work, but I signed up for a fanfic site with my school email so I have to check it for that.” says Amethyst.

“And I like to keep updated on my school work,” says Pearl.

“Right, so maybe she just checks her emails. But really, it’s impossible to know!” She glances behind her. “Oh shit, she just looked at us. I think she can hear us.”

“Is she wearing earphones?” asks Pearl.

“Uh… yeah, I think she is. It’s hard to see but I’m pretty sure she is. I don’t know if she’s actually listening to music, though.”

“Why wouldn’t she be?” asks Lapis.

“I mean, I’ve never heard her talk. She might be mute.”

“Mute people can listen to music, you dolt.”

“...Oh yeah, I was getting that confused with deafness. Still, we should probably stop talking about her. She might catch on soon.”

“Good idea,” says Amethyst. “Ugh, we’ve got this bullshit assignment for visual arts. It’s totally bullshit.”

“It’s not that bad,” says Pearl defensively.

“Shut up, Pearl, it’s fucking bullshit. We didn’t even learn half of that.”

As Amethyst continues to rant about her bullshit visual arts assignment, the dark-skinned girl sitting by herself adjusts her sunglasses. She runs a hand through her impossibly square-shaped afro. She straightens out her shirt, a black one with a large pink star to one side. She takes out her phone.

She turns her music back on.


	2. Noteworthy

Someone’s playing ukulele. 

They’re remarkably good at it, too. They’re singing along, but Garnet can’t recognize the song, especially not with earphones in. She pauses. Having earphones in when someone’s performing is rude … but there’s no way for her to know if this person is performing or just practicing, and taking her headphones out just to listen to someone practicing is creepy. Unsure of what to do, she takes a seat at the back of the room and plays games on her phone until the teacher arrives.

It’s a substitute.

Fucking hell.

Garnet does not recognize the teacher, but to be fair, she’s only been here a few weeks. It’s a woman of average height with greying hair tied into two buns, one on each side of her head. She takes a blue marker and dramatically writes the words MS AGATE in all capital letters on the whiteboard. “Settle down, class!”

The students who were previously mucking around at the back of the class immediately look up at the voice. They quickly get out their notebooks and sit nicely. Ms Agate is clearly not a teacher to be trifled with.

With an annoyed frown on her face, Ms Agate takes out a sheet of paper, presumably the roll. “Garnet Corundum?”

Garnet blushes slightly; she hates being the first on the roll. It gives her no time to prepare her response. “Here.”

She continues going through the roll until the last name on the list causes her to raise an eyebrow. “...Nora Universe?”

The student that was playing ukulele earlier groans. “Ugh, just call me Stevonnie.”

The teacher stares at them in stunned silence for several seconds. “...Stevonnie?”

“Yeah,” they explain. “Well, my parents would have called me Steven if I was a boy, and my middle name is Connie, so…” They smash their closed fists together in away that seems to signify either fusion or lesbian sex. “Stevonnie.” 

“...And your surname is Universe?”

“Uh, technically it should be Maheswaran, but my dad got it legally changed before I was born. So now it’s Universe.” 

The teacher’s eyebrow remains raised, but she says no more on the matter. She makes a final marking on the sheet of paper. She glances around at the class in search of someone who’s not too agitated or excited, but also not obviously bored. “...Garnet, can you take the roll up to the office?”

Garnet’s heart skips a beat.

“...Of course, Ms Agate.” she says politely, standing up. She walks to the front of the class, and her stride is confident. She walks like she’s got somewhere to go and she knows what she’s doing. Her shaking hands tell a different story.

Ms Agate passes her the sheet, and she hesitates. She’s not actually sure where to take the roll. The office, obviously, but the office is big and there’s a lot of potential places to take it to. She considers asking for clarification, but decides against it. The whole class is watching her now. She can’t afford to be the kid who does not know where to take the roll.

She walks outside and gently closes the door behind her, cautious to avoid slamming it. Fidgeting with her maroon gloves, she walks downstairs.

She loves music class, she really does. But she hates substitute teachers and she hates having to take things to the office. Still, she can’t exactly not complete the task now that she’s agreed to it, so she goes to the office.

Once again, she considers asking where specifically to go, but quickly shuts the thought down. Instead she looks around for another student carrying a roll, hoping that they’ll accidentally teach her where to go. 

“Hi, Garnet!”

She almost jumps at the noise. She turns sharply. It’s Peridot from her robotics class… the one who loudly declared that she has future vision yesterday! She cringes, but waves politely.

“What are you doing here?”

Garnet deliberates for a while about whether to give a verbal response. She overheard that Peridot thinks she’s mute, so maybe she should talk … but then Peridot might loudly express her shock that Garnet can talk and draw attention to them both! Not to mention she could make fun of Garnet’s distinctly British accent… 

Silently, she holds up the roll, and Peridot squints slightly trying to read it. “Oh … I’m taking a roll up too. Cool, you’re in Stevonnie’s class!”

Right. So Peridot knows Stevonnie. Wait … that means Stevonnie probably hates Garnet, since they’re friends with Peridot and Peridot probably hates Garnet, or at least somehow thinks she has future vision.

“...Uh, do you talk?” asks Peridot.

Garnet gulps. “Yes.”

Peridot’s eyes widen, but she doesn’t yell out, thank God. “You never talk in robotics.”

“There’s nothing to say in robotics.” 

Peridot keeps walking and Garnet walks with her, if only to hide that she has no idea where to go. When Peridot hands her roll in to a lady behind the counter, Garnet does the same and takes a mental note of the place. The two part ways and Garnet heads back up to music class, where the teacher is handing out a note.

“Oh! Garnet, I forgot you were gone!” She hands Garnet a note and Garnet reads it as she sits down. “Here’s a note for your assessment task.”

Garnet skims over the paper. She’s not too worried. Music class is generally pretty easy, with a focus on practical learning over the theory component and very little knowledge needed for the tests. It’ll probably just be a few questions that can be answered with a google search.

“You’ll have to work in a group,” explains Ms Agate, and Garnet’s heart skips a beat.

Glancing around the room in search of someone she could possibly work with, she sinks back into her seat, making herself as small as possible, which is quite difficult due to her abnormally tall height. But her breathing quickens as she reads the words on the assessment task that will change her life.

_Students will have to perform in front of the class._


	3. Friend Ship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter (as well as the last one) is a perfect example of one of the main problems with third person limited perspective: we're mostly seeing through garnet's eyes (with the exception of a couple sections focusing on the crystal gems talking at lunch), but the narrator is still a separate entity to Garnet.
> 
> so what's the problem? well, basically the problem is that since the narrator is a separate entity to garnet, I thought it would be stupid to refer to Stevonnie with she/her even though that's what garnet would mentally refer to them with, because the narrator is a separate entity and there's no reason why the narrator would misgender Stevonnie.
> 
> except the way they're referred to with they/them in parts that are clearly garnet's internal thoughts makes it seem like garnet thinks of them with they/them pronouns, and the fact that they never say that they use they/them makes it seem like they know garnet knows. so like ... idk, assume that either they explained their pronouns to the class at some point before the story starts, or garnet has magical pronoun knowledge and stevonnie has magical knowledge of garnet's magical pronoun knowledge.
> 
> (also: the "freshman rainbow" is rainbow quartz 2.0 which is why he uses he/him and is hanging out with stevonnie and smoky. the "junior rainbow" is rainbow quartz 1.0. also before someone points out that diamond academy is meant to be an all girls school, I went to an all girls school and in the two years I was there I met two trans guys so i'm going to use that incredibly small sample size to say that, if you go to the high school for four years, you'll meet 4 trans boys! )

She spares a quick glance behind her, and then sets her tray down on the table. “Well, she’s not mute. I saw her in the office when I was taking the roll up.”

“Then how come she never talks in robotics?” asks Pearl.

“Apparently she just has nothing to say.”

Lapis sets down her tray next to Peridot. “Isn’t the cunt going to be mad that you’re sitting with us?”

“Nah, Jas is busy trying to beat the shit out of Garnet.” 

“Oh,” says Pearl, frowning. “Shouldn’t we do something about that?”

Amethyst scoffs, spraying crumbs across the table. “Yeah, great idea. We’ll just go up and politely ask her to stop being a bully. That’ll go over great.” 

“We can tell a teacher!”

“Yeah, great idea. Then the teacher can go up and politely ask her to stop being a bully. That’ll go over great.” She takes a sip of her coke. “Besides, Garnet’s pretty tall, ain’t she? I reckon she can take J -- oi!”

She groans in frustration as a Cookie Cat is rather rudely taken out of her hand. “Fuck you, Stevonnie.”

“I’ve seen you doing the same to Pearl.”

Pearl glances up at the teenager. They’re around her height, with long dark curls and medium-dark skin. They’re wearing a salmon pink shirt and jean shorts. “Have you seen Rainbow?” asks Pearl.

“The freshman Rainbow or the junior Rainbow?”

“Freshman, obviously, that’s the one you’re friends with.”

“Sorry, haven’t seen ‘im.”

“Drat,” murmurs Pearl. “We have a project for dance and I was wondering if he needed help.”

“Sorry.” They open the Cookie Cat and take a bite out of it, ignoring Amethyst’s frustrated groans. “Anyone seen Garnet? The new girl in my music class?”

“She just had PE,” answers Peridot. “Check the gym. Why?”

“We’ve got a project that we have to do in a group, and she doesn’t seem to have any friends and all my friends are in other classes, so … Shouldn’t she be a Crystal Gem?”

The “Crystal Gems”, invented by Pearl in their freshman year and still used despite its childishness, is the name for the students like Lapis, Pearl, Peridot, and Amethyst. The ones that sit together because they have nowhere else to sit. The loners, the outcasts, the ones that can’t fit in anywhere in Diamond Academy. Stevonnie, technically, is part of the group, but they mostly hang out with their freshman friends, Rainbow and Smoky.

Some students remain Crystal Gems for life; others sit with them until they can make other friends. But everyone -- or at least, everyone who hasn’t bullied or hurt the Crystal Gems for obvious reasons -- is welcome. The Crystal Gems are like a safety net for any teen that finds themself rejected.

Garnet, somehow, has slipped through the cracks.

“We’re not sure how to approach her,” says Pearl. “She seems to be content with not having friends.” 

“I dunno, she was shaking a little in music this morning. Well, I’m gonna go check to see if she’s in the gym. See ya!”

* * *

She struggles to unlock her phone; the brightness is at the lowest possible level to avoid people seeing her screen, and the lights in the gym are bright enough to dull the screen. Finally, she manages to unlock it and turn the brightness up a little, using her selfie camera to inspect the bruise on her forehead. It’s not too obvious, or at least it isn’t right now. She turns the brightness back down and shoves her phone back into her pocket. 

She hears footsteps behind her and turns sharply.

The student approaching them is a familiar one, with long dark brown hair. Their shirt, a salmon pink one with a yellow star on it, seems incredibly familiar.

“Uh…” the student mumbles uncertainly. “It’s, uh … I’m Stevonnie! From your music class! You’re Garnet, right?”

Garnet’s heart skips a beat. Stevonnie recognizes her. And they seem anxious. She must be acting too intimidating. “That’s me.”

“Wow! I was just looking for you! Oh, uh, by the way, is everything okay? I just saw Jasper coming out of here and Jasper’s usually mean to new kids…”

“I’m fine,” says Garnet before she can think of an excuse for what she was doing with Jasper.

“Well, uh, that’s good.” The teenager smiles. “Anyway, I was wondering if you have a group for the music assessment?”

Garnet considers lying in her response. Stevonnie might think she’s lame or weird for not having any friends in music class. But … they might ask who she’s working with, and she’s not familiar enough with the names of her classmates to list multiple people from her music class that could feasibly be working together. Not to mention they might be asking because they want to work with her…

She shakes the thought away. Stevonnie would never want to work with her unless they’re desperate. Still … maybe they _are_ desperate. And if Garnet lies now, then eventually when their music teacher is back the class will be divided into groups and people who haven’t partnered up already will be put together. If Stevonnie sees Garnet being allocated a group by the teacher after saying she has a group already, they’ll know she’s a liar…

“No.”

“Cool!” says Stevonnie, a little too enthusiastically. “Uh, thing is, none of my other friends take music! So I was thinking we could work together?”

Well, apparently they are desperate. Garnet hesitates. She barely knows Stevonnie .. but she knows them a lot better than anyone else in music class. Maybe it’s best to just partner up with them while she has the opportunity.

“Sure.”

“Woohoo!” They fidget with two dull glowsticks around their wrist. “Are you a sophomore or a freshman?”

“Sophomore.”

“Cool, I’m a freshman!” They take out their phone, presumably to check the time, and then put it back in their pocket. “Okay, so I’m gonna head back to lunch now. See ya round!”

They eagerly run off. 

Garnet thinks that maybe she can trust them.


	4. Wrong Answer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for very heavily implied self-harm at the end, as well as bullying, homophobia, and ... ableism? is heterochromia a disability? idk if there's a specific term but someone makes fun of garnet's heterochromia

She looked weird, and that was fine.

The previous day, she had seen a purple-haired stranger in the supermarket. At the time, she had decided purple was her favourite colour, and that she wanted purple hair too. She begged her moms for hair dye.

After a while, they caved to her puppy dog eyes and agreed that she was allowed to dye her hair, but on the condition that she had to wait for them to buy dye. They expected her to think that this was a fair trade-off, but Garnet was appalled! She would have to wait a whole day to have purple hair. Didn’t they understand that this was life or death?!

Besides, they didn’t really need to buy dye. Mommy kept her hair dyed red and Mummy dyed hers blue from time to time, so there was red and blue hair dye in the cupboard. And Garnet, who was doing really well in art class, knew that red and blue made purple. So they could just mix the dyes and make purple, right?

What could possibly go wrong?

It was this line of reasoning that had led to her shamefully walking out of the bathroom with hair like cotton candy, one half a pastel blue and the other a vibrant pink. Her moms were angry at first that she hadn’t waited, but after Mummy explained why they were upset, Garnet realised that she had been wrong in not doing what they said and apologised.

Satisfied with her apology, they offered to help her wash all the dye out before school tomorrow. But Garnet thought her new pink and blue hair was the coolest thing in the world! She wore her favourite pink and blue dress to match and eagerly got ready for school.

Her classmates were equally impressed. They all agreed that her hair was the coolest thing ever! She was so happy. 

Until someone asked if she meant to dye her hair like that.

“Actually, it was meant to be purple,” she explained. “One of my moms had blue hair dye and the other had red, so I tried to mix it, but --”

“You have two moms?” asked another classmate.

“Mm-hmm.”

Several pairs of eyes turned to face her. “Is one your stepmom?”

“...No.”

One classmate chuckled. “I bet they both love her dad and they don’t know about each other.”

“I don’t have a dad,” said Garnet, frowning.

“Huh? Did he die?”

“No, I … I never had a dad.” A pause. “I mean, I technically did when I was born but my moms adopted me.”

A classmate frowned. “But if you don’t have a dad then who is your mom married to?”

“My moms are married to each other.”

“Like …” Someone sneered. “Lesbians?”

“Mm-hmm,” said Garnet proudly. She knew that some people didn’t like lesbians because they were homophobic, but her moms had told her that only bullies were homophobic. And her classmates weren’t bullies, so they couldn’t be homophobic. 

Someone laughed. “Does that make you a lesbian?”

“No.”

“Is that why your hair is stupid?” laughed someone. “Because you have two moms that didn’t raise you right?”

“...My hair isn’t stupid…”

“Is that why your eyes are broken? Because your moms are gay?”

“...Broken?”

Garnet looked at her reflection in the blank screen of the laptop that the teacher used. One of her eyes was a regular onyx brown, while the other was a greyish-blue. Her moms told her that it’s called heterochromia, but … they had never called her broken. Nobody had.

She got out her pencil case. She took out her pretty rainbow pencil, ignoring the sneers about how rainbows proved she was gay, and her favourite eraser. It was pink and white with a large yellow star on one side.

“...Am I broken?” she asked.

The eraser didn’t answer.

* * *

She barely has time to dump her bag on the floor before she’s asked the obvious question.

“What happened to your head?”

The bruise on her forehead is now obvious and purple and it’s a miracle she got through last period without someone being concerned. Sapphire -- or Mum, as she’s normally called -- barely has to look up to notice it, and Ruby -- Mom -- is quick to inspect the mark. “What happened? Did you get into a fight?!”

“The school would have called if she got into a fight,” says Mum calmly.

“Then…” Mom gulps. “Are you being bullied?”

Garnet gulps. “It’s only one girl. I’ll be okay.”

Mum frowns. “Have you told a teacher?” But Garnet has a feeling she already knows the answer.

“No.”

Mum sighs. “Sweetie, I know it’s hard, but the teachers are here to help.”

Mom paces anxiously, running a hand through her hair. “Is … is it because of us? Did they find out you had two moms?”

“...Not until she had already been picking on me for a while.”

Mum tuts. “So this has been going on for some time.”

It’s not a question. “...Yeah.”

“Garnet, please. You don’t have to hide from us. It’s okay.” 

Garnet rubs the back of her neck uneasily, then opts to change the subject. “I made a friend today.”

Her mom’s eyes light up. “Really?”

“Mm-hmm,” says Garnet proudly. “Their name’s Stevonnie.”

Mom turns sharply. “Who names their kid Stevonnie?”

“They named themself. They’re nonbinary.” Opting not to explain their last name, she continues, “Their parents were going to name them Steven if they were a boy, and their middle name is Connie, so they fused them together to become Stevonnie.”

“Enough about their name,” says Mum. “How did you befriend them? Did you…” Her voice is just a little too hopeful. “...Approach them?”

“...No.” Garnet admits. She wants to twist the truth a little to avoid worrying them, but she can’t lie to her moms. “They approached me. We had an assignment and we needed to work in groups, and they noticed I sat by myself and they didn’t have any friends in music, so they asked if I wanted to work with them.”

It’s a September morning and the air is chilly, but Mom seemingly fails to notice. She’s wearing a red jacket to keep her arms warm, but her legs must be freezing, since all she’s wearing on her lower half is a pair of brown shorts. She does have a thick layer of leg hair to protect her legs from the cold, though.

Nobody in the Corundum household shaves their legs -- not even Sapphire, the embodiment of femme. It’s too much effort. It’s usually easier to just wear sweatpants or a long skirt. 

Nobody in the Corundum household shaves. They stopped for the same reason that Garnet started wearing gloves that cover her wrists.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly my least favourite thing about mental health fics is that so many of them have useless parents. like, in a lot the parents are abusive and that makes sense because abuse will obviously worsen/create mental health problems, but a lot of them have parents who supposedly have "good intentions" and then either never notice that their child is depressed, or appear for one scene to say "its ok you can always talk to me about your depression" and then are never mentioned again so that the love interest can single-handedly heal the main character (ok I lied the "love interest single-handedly heals main character" thing is my least fave thing about mental health fics)
> 
> idk, i feel like it comes from this idea that if you have mental health issues it's because your parents failed? like i get that obviously having bad parents is bad for your mental health, but even ignoring that some people are just genetically predisposed to mental health problems, schoolmates/bullies can do real damage. and parents can't stop that. (teachers can, but in my experience they usually dont).
> 
> so in this fic I try to make Ruby and Sapphire as helpful as possible! (also please suspend your disbelief on Garnet knowing Stevonnie is nonbinary, just pretend there was a scene where they mentioned it ok)


	5. Wrong Question

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are heating up in the Crying Breakfast Friends fandom 
> 
> Trigger warnings: bullying, teachers being absolute shitheads that do nothing about bullying and blame the victim, and (not really likely to be a trigger but some people dont want to read it anyway) rose quartz (or at least someone who is implied to be rose) being depicted as an absolute cunt.

She almost jumps when someone sits next to her.

That never happens, not even when they have assigned seating. For a second she panics, but looking at the person next to her quickly helps her understand why.

“Hi, Stevonnie.”

“Hey!” they answer enthusiastically.

It’s music. They get the lesson mostly without teacher interference to work on brainstorming for their assignments. Garnet’s … not entirely sure what she’s meant to do, honestly. Her brain sort of short-circuited after she read the part about performing in front of the class.

Stevonnie reads over the assessment note. “Right, so we basically just have to make a short song and perform it. This’ll be a breeze! Any ideas?”

Garnet shrugs. She rather thinks it’s not going to be a breeze.

Stevonnie frowns. “Hey, you okay?”

Garnet adjusts her sunglasses. Her heart skips several beats. “I’m fine.”

“You sure? You seem kinda…” They gesture vaguely. “I dunno.”

Garnet frowns. She can’t tell what she’s doing that’s causing them concern. She could ask, but … then they’ll think she’s just being difficult on purpose. And then they’ll think she’s deliberately acting upset to make them concerned, or that she’s hiding what the problem is because she thinks they’re untrustworthy…

“Oh yeah, I just remembered -- I heard Jasper’s been picking on you. Everything okay?”

Miscoloured eyes widen behind her shades. “I don’t know where you would have heard that.”

“Uh, Jasper’s sister told me.”

“...Oh.” Garnet didn’t know Jasper had a sister. “I’m fine. It’s nothing I can’t handle. I’m used to being bullied.”

She was hoping that would reassure them, but their features grow more concerned. Wait … this is all wrong! Classmates aren’t meant to worry about her. The only people who worry about her are her moms and maybe some distant cousins that she’s only met twice. Classmates don’t frown when she seems upset, classmates make fun of her and yell at her and …

Her mind flashes back to her conversation with her moms yesterday. 

_“Garnet, please. You don’t have to hide from us. It’s okay.”_

_She rubbed the back of her neck nervously, then opted to change the subject. “I made a new friend today.”_

Classmates don’t care about Garnet. Classmates make fun of her, classmates yell at her, classmates make her wish she had never been born. But Stevonnie’s not her classmate. Stevonnie’s her friend.

“You know,” says Stevonnie hesitantly. “Jasper’s like that to a lot of people. Some of my friends have been really badly hurt by her, so they sit together for strength in numbers! And, uh, I noticed you always sit alone, so…”

Garnet’s breath hitches.

They can tell she’s sitting alone! And they noticed! Just when she thought she had finally made a friend, the game is up. They know she has no other friends. That’s probably why they approached her about the assignment task… because they knew she’d be so desperate for a partner that she’d take them! She knew she should have been skeptical when her first friend was also friends with Peridot, who probably hates her or at least somehow thinks she has future vision … but she can’t help but feel crushed. She finally has a friend, but now it’s all over, they know she’s a loner, they know she’s broken…

She suddenly feels a hand on her shoulder and Stevonnie is looking up at her with concerned eyes. “Hey, Garnet, it’s okay.”

Garnet raises an eyebrow under her shades. Stevonnie knows she sits alone. Stevonnie knows she’s a loner. Stevonnie knows she’s broken.

...So why are they still her friend?

* * *

“Check out my Crying Breakfast Friends figurine!” a classmate bragged.

As is the norm for elementary school students, everyone immediately got out of their seats to crowd around the boy with the figurine, touching it and asking questions. One girl suspiciously stayed in her seat.

“Garnet?” asked the teacher. “Don’t you want to come look at Jason’s toy?”

“No.” said Garnet bluntly.

A girl turned around in the middle of declaring her love for Jason and her intentions to show her love by writing his name on her pencil case. “That’s rude!” she sneered.

“No it’s not.” said Garnet.

“Why don’t you want to look at the toy?” asked another classmate.

“Because Crying Breakfast Friends is stupid.”

The boy with the toy -- Jason -- looked at her like she had just insulted him personally. “What?!” 

“It’s stupid.” said Garnet. “They all just cry for no reason.”

Jason’s face grew red with rage in the way only elementary school students’ faces could, and within seconds Garnet was hit in the face by a plastic replica of Sad Apple.

“Miss!” whined Garnet, angry at having something thrown at her.

With a patronising sigh, the teacher took Sad Apple from where it had landed next to Garnet’s desk, dusted it off, and handed it back to Jason. “Don’t throw things,” she scolded.

“Sorry, Miss.”

“It’s okay. Just don’t do it again.” She turned to Garnet, who had her arms crossed in the pose of a typical sulking child, annoyed that Jason’s apology was directed at the unharmed teacher rather than herself. “Garnet, don’t be mean to Jason.”

“I wasn’t mean to him!” she protested.

“You said Crying Breakfast Friends is stupid.”

“How is that mean?”

“Stop being difficult.”

Garnet sulked for the rest of the lesson. When the recess bell went, Garnet stayed behind. “Miss?”

The teacher gave an irritated sigh. “Yes?”

“How is it mean to say that Crying Breakfast Friends is stupid?” asked Garnet. “I didn’t say Jason was stupid, only the show! And I only said it because someone asked me why I didn’t want to look at the toy.”

“It was rude to not look at the toy.”

“Why is that rude?”

Another dramatic sigh. “You used to be such a polite girl, Garnet. You would always sit quietly and do your work. Now you’re being so rude!”

“I’m not being rude!” protested Garnet feebly. “How is it rude to not want to look at a toy?”

“Stop being difficult!”

“I’m not being difficult!”

“Yes you are! You used to be so quiet and respectful. Now you keep asking all these pointless questions, and you’re such a rude little girl…”

“Why am I rude?”

“Stop asking questions! Stop asking such silly questions.” The teacher ran a hand through her pink hair. “You already are the answer.”


	6. Ten Out Of Tenor

Her contacts list has a total of four people.

Her moms, obviously. A cousin by the name of Rhodonite that she’s only met twice. And her newest addition, Stevonnie.

Their number was written on a piece of paper torn from the back of their music book in turquoise gel pen, following a lesson in which they had made no progress whatsoever due to Garnet needing most of the period trying to wrap her head around the fact that they wanted to be her friend. 

“We’ll arrange for you to come over to my house!” they said cheerfully, and Garnet nodded politely as though she wasn’t secretly planning on having a dentist’s appointment at whatever time they suggested. “Oh, uh, you’re okay with dogs, right?”

Garnet nodded, more truthfully this time.

“Yeah, but like, are you cool with big dogs? Because, uh, I’ve got a wolfhound named Lion. He’s probably as big as Jasper.”

She raised an eyebrow at this possible hyperbole, but it was hidden by her shades. “Big dogs are fine, as long as they’re not aggressive.”

“Uh, Lion? He might lick a little, but he won’t hurt you.” They chuckled. “Some of my friends kinda freaked out about him though. One of them never comes over anymore ‘cause she’s skinny as a rail and she feels tiny compared to the dog.” They leaned back in their chair, smiling fondly. “Pearl hates the Irish Wolfhound.”

Garnet just nodded uselessly at the time. Now she’s staring at her phone uncertainly. She should call them now, to give them her number if nothing else. Or maybe she should text. There’s no way for her to know which method they would prefer … but if she tries to form a text she’ll just spend the next two hours proofreading it.

With shaking hands, she presses the call button.

She’s unsure if they’ll even answer as the phone rings, but eventually their voice rings through the line. “Uh, hello? Who is this?”

She gulps. “This is Garnet.”

“Cool!” They brighten up immediately. “Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask since you kinda zoned out in music…” They don’t hear the resulting hitched breath, and continue, “Want me to introduce you to some of my friends? They’re cool, I promise.”

“No thanks,” she answers, and if it weren’t for the gloves she wears she’d have surely dug her nails into her palm hard enough to draw blood by now. “I’m introverted.”

“Okay … anyway, when can you come over to work on the project?”

Any time they’re free is a good time. Garnet never does much on the weekends, sometimes she goes out with her moms but that can always be rescheduled. It’s not like she has friends to hang out with or anything. But … Stevonnie would probably think she’s lame if she said that…

“We should probably do it on a weekend.” she says, opting to not actually answer the question.

“Cool! Uh, it’s Friday now, so … you free tomorrow?”

Garnet’s heart skips a beat. She is free tomorrow, but … the last time she visited a friend’s house must have been in elementary school! Unless Rhodonite counts … but even then, she was with her moms at the time. She’ll need time to research how to be polite as a guest, and more importantly, she’ll need time to emotionally prepare…

“I, um…” Her hands are shaking and her voice falters. “I don’t really do well with last-minute plans.”

“That’s fine!” says Stevonnie a little too quickly. They must be trying to reassure her. “What about a week from tomorrow? Is that any better?”

“Um…” She hesitates. Maybe she has a dentist’s appointment … but then they’ll just suggest Sunday. “That’s fine. I’ll see you on Monday.”

“See ya!” they say cheerfully before hanging up. 

Garnet puts her phone on her bed, then walks out to the living room. “I’m going to Stevonnie’s house a week from tomorrow, if that’s okay with you.” 

“Of course it is,” answers Mum. “Usual rules apply -- back by ten and text us if you’re going to be late, call or text one of us if you need picked up, and don’t do anything illegal.” The rules have to be stated every time she makes plans, because the occasions on which she either finds someone to go with her or takes the risk of going out alone are far apart enough for her to justifiably forget the details. 

“We’re watching Under the Knife,” says Mom. “Want to join us?”

Garnet shakes her head. “I think I’m going to practice piano for a bit now.”

“Piano” isn’t really the right term. Technically speaking, it’s a keyboard and not an acoustic piano, which wouldn’t be terribly relevant if it weren’t for the fact that she uses pretty much every setting except the piano tone, with a preference for synth noises and strings.

A mere four octaves long and light enough to easily carry to her desk and plug in, it was a gift for her fourteenth birthday, a few months shy of two years ago. Her moms got it for her in the hope that being able to channel her artistic talent would help her, after it became clear that she wasn’t interested in drawing and lacked the necessary fine motor skills for sewing.

Its status as a mere tool for venting creativity and experimenting means that she has made little to no effort to actually learn to play. Everything she plays is something she’s made up on the spot, and when she thinks it’s good enough to write down, she writes down the note names and counts on her own memory for the rhythm.

Despite this, though, Garnet’s actually pretty good at music. She can’t sight-read sheet music, but she’ll be able to play things on the treble clef if you give her a few minutes, though the bass clef is another story entirely. She could probably write the few things she’s created in sheet music if she wanted to.

More importantly, despite her relative lack of knowledge of actual music theory, not to mention her inability to do anything that involves both hands, she has a bit of a knack for creating genuinely pleasing melodies. Most of them are forgotten quickly since she relies on her own ability to remember the rhythm, but if she put her mind to it, she could probably make something good.

In fact, she already has put her mind to it.

“Stronger Than You”. She wrote it on impulse a few months back after hearing her moms’ original song “Something Entirely New” and being desperate to have her own “gay anthem”. The lyrics were written as a poem and then edited to fit with the chords she made, with the result that the melody was completely in flux for the first few weeks and the first verse seems to be spoken rather than sung. The lyrics written with the chords are somewhere in the back of one of her notebooks, but she fully intends for their existence to remain a secret. She’s fully memorised how to play it by now, and she feels no need for Stevonnie to find out that she’s so clueless at music theory that she writes “G+Bb+D” instead of “G minor”.

Garnet’s no expert, but with her natural talent at music, she could probably create something genuinely good for this assignment. She could probably contribute just as much as Stevonnie if not more with her skills. Together, they could probably create something brilliant. In fact, with two moms that actually have knowledge of music theory, she could probably create a good song even if it was individual work.

But it’s group work.

So she fully intends to sit in the corner of the room hiding her talent and hoping Stevonnie’s good at composing.

Better that than risk losing her first friend in years because she’s being so arrogant about her nonexistent musical talent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for real if you dont know what an irish wolfhound is google it. i have an irish wolfhound named valkyrie and she is literally the best thing in the world. they're the best dogs ever but they are HUGE
> 
> and ive decided that Lion in all my human aus is a wolfhound because (1) it's the largest animal that could be realistically Steven/Rose/Stevonnie's pet and canon!Lion is huge (2) I have an irish wolfhound and i love them and (3) wolfhounds are great but some people, particularly those who are neurotic and uptight, freak out about them which means I can make "pearl hates the irish (wolfhound)" jokes
> 
> next up on That Social Anxiety Garnet Fic: Shit Goes Down


	7. Jail Broken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: bullying, physical assault, implied self-harm

If she had known this would happen, she would have taken advantage of the fact that PE isn’t mandatory.

She supposes that it’s probably for the best that she still takes the class. She probably wouldn’t get enough exercise outside of school -- she goes for a run on the weekends, but it’s not like she has any friends to play team sports with. Still, she can’t deny that being constantly picked last in basketball is literally her worst nightmare.

She digs her nails into her palms as the team captain hesitantly points to her. It’s just because of Jasper, she tells herself. They just don’t want to be her friend because that will put a target on their back. 

It still sucks.

As the game starts up, Garnet finds herself melting into the background with the students that are only participating because they’ll get a detention if they don’t. She likes basketball, she wants to get involved … but Jasper has the ball. 

She deliberates on whether to step forward, to play her part in the game. Jasper will be furious, obviously. But … sometimes bullies target students they see as weak because they’re easy targets. Maybe if she can prove her strength by beating Jasper, she’ll back off and leave her alone. Besides, she could earn the respect of all her PE classmates…

It’s about time she’s started stepping outside of her comfort zone.

Without warning she runs forward and grabs the ball as Jasper’s attempting to throw it to a teammate. Several pairs of eyes turn to stare at her, while Jasper gapes uselessly, struggling to process her defeat at the hands of such an inferior classmate. A few concerned faces stare at her. 

“Psst! Over here!” 

It’s a teammate. The rainbow hair girl. Garnet thinks her name is Bismuth. She tosses the ball over to her, and Bismuth eagerly catches it. She starts dribbling it toward the other end of the court. Garnet starts running after her, ready to help her team, and promptly gets her head slammed into a wall.

On instinct she pushes Jasper away from her but it’s only a second before she’s slammed into the wall again. The second time she manages to push back harder and get some distance between them before Jasper can get up. She sees Jasper struggling to her feet, fury in her eyes, and braces herself for the worst.

She expects a fight. She expects to be beaten up. She expects to limp home and listen to Mom’s furious rambling about the school. 

What she doesn’t expect is that Jasper is saying, in a voice that sounds like a third grader upset that they just got hit in the face with Jason’s Sad Apple toy, “Sir! She pushed me!”

...Fucking hell.

The teacher gives an irate sigh. “Both of you, go sit down. I’m so sick of this.”

It doesn’t matter that Garnet pushing her was basic self-defense. It doesn’t matter that Jasper’s fine. It doesn’t matter that this has been going on for weeks.

They both have to sit down. All crimes are equal.

Because when you’re a defective, broken girl that’s having problems with the smart, popular jock, you don’t have a bullying problem, you have a rivalry problem.

Not to mention that the teacher can’t even have the sense to get them to sit down in different places so they won’t immediately start arguing.

“Fucking bitch,” snarls Jasper, fidgeting with a stray rock that somehow ended up in the gym. “This is all your fault.”

Garnet remains silent.

“Why can’t you just be fucking normal for once?”

“Stop arguing, you two!” yells the teacher.

Garnet raises an eyebrow, though it’s hidden under her shades to avoid angering Jasper more. She’s not sure what dictionary includes completely one-sided verbal abuse in its definition of “arguing”. She supposes it’s probably the same on that includes completely one-sided physical abuse in its definition of “rivalry”. She’d really like to know where the teacher got this dictionary from. 

Jasper continues “arguing” with Garnet. “See? Now you’re getting me in trouble for your bullshit. You fucking snitch.”

Garnet didn’t snitch. She neglects to mention this. 

“You know, you’re just a fucking defective cunt. There’s something wrong with you.”

Garnet fidgets with her gloves.

“You’re just broken.”

Garnet scratches at her wrists.

* * *

Stevonnie won’t stop asking what the problem is.

“I’m fine,” Garnet insists, not entirely truthfully. “I just had a bit of a confrontation with Jasper.”

They wince sympathetically. “Ugh, Jasper’s like that. Anyway, let’s brainstorm some ideas for this project.” They turn to the back of their music book, which has a notable hole in one corner from where they tore some paper out to give Garnet their phone number. They take out a pencil and Garnet takes out a pen, which they quickly swat away.

“We’re going to want to be able to erase it if we change our mind on some ideas,” they explain.

Garnet nods and takes out a pencil. She very rarely draws, so she very rarely uses it. She only brings it to school in the first place so she can use it for diagrams in science-related classes, but in practice she uses pen for those if she can get away with it. For this reason, it’s rather cheap and low quality and Garnet is rather inexperienced in holding it properly.

It touches the paper for around three seconds before the lead breaks.

“Drat,” she murmurs. “I don’t have a sharpener.”

“You can borrow one of mine.”

They open a pocket of their pencil case and spread out a total of fifteen pencil sharpeners, with varying colours, united by the fact that they all have a prominent star on one side. Garnet raises an eyebrow.

“I collect stationary,” they explain. “I stole most of them from my friends. You can keep one of them if you want, it’s not like I’m going to somehow break all of them.”

“...” Garnet keeps her eyebrow raised, but says nothing. She takes one of the sharpeners. It’s a black one, and the star is a pale pink with a darker pink outline. She stands up and walks to the bin to sharpen it, then goes back to her desk.

She hesitates. “Are you sure I can keep it?” It’s not often that Garnet asks questions.

Because really, she’s not asking Stevonnie. She’s asking herself.

“Yeah, sure! What, do you think I’m going to need it?” They gesture to the fourteen sharpeners remaining. 

“...Thanks.”

She places the sharpener in the pocket of her jeans. She watches as Stevonnie starts to write down their ideas for the project, fidgeting with her gloves all the while.


	8. Cut It Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: some pretty explicit discussion of self-harm. this is probably the most triggering it's going to get unless I throw something else in later on, other chapters will have some mentions and references to self-harm but i dont think im going to discuss it as much as in this one.

She’d be lying if she said she knows what the fuck they’re going on about, but she’d also be lying if she said she wants to know.

Something about a semibreve. Whatever the fuck that is.

It’s odd, in a way. First time she’s visited a friend since elementary school and she can’t bring herself to panic. Or care about the assignment. She knows that she should be terrified about the assignment, but she can’t feel the fear when she thinks about it; the idea of performing just feels so far away, so unattainable, that she feels nothing when she pictures it.

Normally Garnet always looks toward the future, constantly visualising the different possible outcomes of her choices, but now she can’t bring herself to focus on anything long-term. She can’t focus on the assignment. She can’t focus on anything except the image of Mom pacing and yelling and crying, of Mum putting a hand on her shoulder and making her promise not to do anything stupid…

It’s a miracle she was even allowed to come, honestly.

“Hey, you okay?” Stevonnie, as usual. They have a way of being able to recognize when she’s unable to focus.

“Yeah, it’s just…” She pauses. She can’t really act like everything’s fine anymore. But she might lose the first friend she’s made in years … She gulps, and prepares for the leap of faith, the ultimate trust exercise with Stevonnie. “No. No, I’m not.”

In an instant their confusing page full of crotchets and quavers and “every good boy does fine” is discarded, carelessly flung onto the floor. “Woah. I don’t think you’ve ever answered that honestly before.”

Garnet pauses to consider the time she’s spent with Stevonnie. “I don’t think I have.”

“What’s wrong? Is it Jasper?”

“Yeah … kind of.” She takes a deep breath. “The other day we got into a fight in PE class. The teacher made us both sit down and she said some really awful things to me. And then…” Another deep breath. “I made a mistake.”

“Oh…” Their face falls. “Well, I’m sure it wasn’t a bad mistake…”

“You don’t know that.”

“Garnet, you can tell me anything. Trust me, I won’t judge. And I mean, one of my best friends tried to drown me once so it can’t get much worse than that…”

“One of your best friends tried to drown you.”

“Uh, yeah … Lapis is kinda crazy like that. It’s a long story.” They force a chuckle. “...What did you do?”

“I…” She hesitates. Maybe she shouldn’t tell them. She can’t afford to lose the first friend she’s made in so long. But … there’s no point in having a friend in the first place if she can’t be honest with them. “I cut myself.”

Their exhale sounds almost relieved.

“That’s not bad,” they say hurriedly. “I mean, it’s not good and I hope you don’t do it again, but I wouldn’t stop being your friend or anything.” 

“I’d been clean for over a year,” Garnet admits shyly, fidgeting with her gloves, the very same gloves that serve no purpose except for hiding the evidence. “It … it didn’t even help like it used to.”

“See? That’s good, that means you’re recovering!” They pull her into a tight hug. “You know, there’s a reason I had to steal sharpeners from all of my friends. You’re not alone in this.” 

“...The friends you keep offering to introduce me to.” It’s not a question.

“Yeah, those ones! They’re, uh, kinda the outcasts of the school. You sure you don’t want to meet them? It sounds like you could do with some friends.”

“I… I don’t know.” She sighs. “I’ve been bullied a lot. It’s hard for me to trust people at school.”

“You trust me.”

“Not really.” It’s a little blunt, but they probably won’t mind.

“Well, maybe you will one day.” They force a chuckle. “You can at least trust that I wouldn’t want you to meet them if they weren’t nice, can’t you?”

“...I think so.” A pause. “It’s just …”

“Anxiety?” They take her stunned silence as she looks up at them as an answer. “Yeah, some of my friends are kinda socially anxious too.”

“...This is the first time I’ve been to a friend’s house since kindergarten.”

“...That does sound pretty bad,” they mumble. “What if I introduced them to you one at a time? So you don’t get overwhelmed?”

“I…” Her lips curl upward into a smile. “That could work.”

“See? You’re doing great!” They pat her on the back. “And no more cutting?”

“My moms would freak out if I did. They made me promise to quit.”

“Well, that’s good. Are your moms nice?” 

Garnet nods. “They … really care about me a lot. Sometimes I feel like they’re the only people who do.” Her mind flashes back to her late-night conversation after they caught her, and her face falls. “...Jasper said I was broken.”

“...Well, do you believe her?”

She thinks back to the explanations. To the research. To the apologies for keeping it hidden from her for so long. To the assurances that there was nothing wrong with her.

But that’s too much to explain to Stevonnie right now.

“...No.” 

It’s not entirely true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next up on That Social Anxiety Garnet Fic: the Big Reveal (tm)


	9. Spectrum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait. i promise it's worth it.
> 
> tw for implied self-harm

She wasn’t even a stereotype at this point. She was an archetype. Those who didn’t know better would call her a one-dimensional caricature. Stories written about her would be denounced as full of lazy stereotypes.

And yet somehow, she slipped through the cracks.

She was such a curious little girl. Her third grade teacher once described her as being “a quiet girl who does her work, but often says rude things to her classmates and tries to pretend she doesn’t know how it’s rude”.

“How do you know she’s pretending?” asked Sapphire, while Ruby fumed internally next to her.

“She’s a smart girl. She should be able to identify when she’s being rude.”

“She’s only nine,” defended Ruby with a hint of venom in her voice. “How do you know she can tell?”

“We have to assume good faith,” agreed Sapphire. Her voice was calm, but it was a forceful calm, the sort of calm that quickly persuaded others to keep their tone as level as she kept hers. “Although, I am worried about Garnet’s progress. She’s been reporting being bullied in class, and -- with all due respect -- I think she feels not enough is being done to protect her.”

“Bullying?” scoffed the teacher. “I mean, most of the time she’s deliberately antagonizing the other students and then crying when they get upset with her.”

Sapphire pursed her lips and gave a skeptical look. “How so?”

“Well, for example, on one occaision she claimed she was being ‘bullied’ by Jason after he threw a toy at her, but she said that his favourite cartoon was stupid first.”

“Yes, she told us about that,” defended Sapphire. “She was being pressured to look at the toy even though she didn’t want to. She gave her opinion on the cartoon after being asked why she didn’t want to see the toy.”

“Exactly!” said the teacher with all the self-awareness of a politician trying to insult students participating in “school strikes” by pointing out that they should be in school. “See, she was incredibly rude to Jason by refusing to look at his toy. I think the throwing was sort of justified, honestly.”

“How the fuck,” yelled Ruby. “does not wanting to see a stupid toy justify having shit thrown at you?!”

Ruby, suffice to say, was banned from parent-teacher meetings for the rest of Garnet’s elementary school career.

And with Sapphire powerless to persuade the school, it continued. Garnet continued to be ruthlessly attacked by her classmates, and her teacher continued to berate her for her “rude” questions until she stopped asking questions altogether. 

Her teachers were meant to help her. They were specially trained in this sort of thing, after all.

But somehow, she slipped through the cracks.

* * *

Her transition from elementary to middle school was not an easy one, and the fact that most of her bullies were moving with her didn’t help. 

It took about a week for everyone in her year to find out that she had two moms. It took about two for her to realise that everyone hated her for that.

Everything she said could be used against her. Her words were twisted and taken out of context to make her look bad, or she was accused of using the wrong tone and berated for that. Eventually, halfway through year seven, she decided that she wasn’t going to give them any more ammunition.

Teachers were concerned. Her moms were confused, since she was talking as usual at home. It took half an hour of begging and promises of a new phone to get an answer out of her.

She was rude. That’s what the bullies said when they shoved her against the lockers and that’s what the teachers said when they tried to act like it was just a regular conflict instead of a problem. But it’s impossible that she, as a person, was just naturally unable to be polite -- so, logically, it must be the things she said that were rude. Which, logically, meant that if she stopped talking, she couldn’t be rude.

Some teachers remained concerned. Others gave her a detention for “ignoring classmates”, usually in the same day that they told her to stop reporting bullying because the bullies would supposedly stop if she ignored them.

Garnet got suspended for “violence” toward the start of year eight. A boy was adamant that she had pushed him aggressively for no reason at all. Garnet herself as well as several witnesses reported that he had been shoving her head against a wall and she had pushed him away in self-defense. The teachers decided that since there were conflicting accounts, it was difficult to know what really happened, so the only logical solution was to give them both an equal punishment.

Ruby and Sapphire kept a close eye on her after that.

The weather grew warmer. At some point her insistence on wearing jackets grew suspicious. It was a bit of a giveaway when she started asking for gloves that covered her wrists.

They booked an appointment.

* * *

Sapphire fidgeted nervously with the fabric of her skirt, sparing a glance at the unmoving door. “I’m not sure about this.”

“I think it’s the best thing for her right now,” said the unfamiliar woman. “She had incredibly low self-esteem. She … believes that there’s something wrong with her. That she’s defective in some way.”

“Exactly!” yelled Ruby, and Sapphire shot her a glare for her volume. “Don’t you think she would feel better if she had some sort of explanation for why she’s different?!”

“Not yet,” the therapist insisted, and they conceded defeat. She was a professional, after all.

She wasn’t a very good professional.

They went back out to the waiting room. Garnet rose from her seat as though it was just a regular old doctor’s office, as though she was just getting her vaccinations. “They don’t normally talk to you two before sessions.”

It wasn’t a question. 

“We, uh,” began Ruby nervously, sweating bullets. “had to discuss, some, uh --”

“Possible diagnosis,” interrupted Sapphire, internally groaning at her wife’s absolute inability to tell a convincing lie. “At the moment she’s thinking social anxiety and …” She hesitated, but followed the advice given by the woman. “Possible depression.”

Garnet gave a thumbs up. Sapphire didn’t return the gesture.

* * *

Ruby paced furiously. Sapphire searched the cupboards for antiseptic. It was quite a task, considering that she had to stand on a chair to reach the cupboard in the first place. Her daughter was adopted and therefore had no chance to inherit hers or Ruby’s ungodly shortness, but … she couldn’t ask Garnet to get it for her. Not now.

“You’d been doing so well,” she said, frowning. “Did something happen at school?” The nod was barely perceptible, but she was perceptive. “Was it that Jasper girl?”

“Mm-hmm.” She was silent for a few seconds, but at Sapphire’s look she gave up and kept talking. “She said … she said I was … defective. That I don’t act normal and there’s something wrong with me.”

“Well, she’s wrong,” said Sapphire, her voice maintaining a facade of calmness.

Ruby hated when Sapphire acted calm. 

“We shouldn’t have listened when that bitch asked us to keep it a secret!” she yelled, too upset to care who heard.

Garnet’s face fell, and her eyes that were already red from crying threatened to leak tears again. “You’ve been keeping secrets from me.”

Sapphire sighed. Well, the cat was out of the bag now. It wasn’t as though Ruby was in any state to explain it calmly and logically. 

“Garnet, sweetie, there were some things your therapist told us not to tell you. We didn’t want to hide anything from you, but we had to do what you said.”

“She’s right…” Her voice was barely audible and she quickly took her sunglasses from a nearby table to hide the tears that were now freely flowing. “She said I was broken.”

“Don’t listen to a word she says!” yelled Ruby. “She’s a bully!”

“Mum…” She put her gloves back on, suddenly not wanting to feel vulnerable. “Am I broken?”

Sapphire took a deep breath to steady herself and stepped down from the chair she was using to access the cupboard. The disinfectant could wait. The emotional wounds had to come before the physical ones.

“Garnet, sweetie, I promise that you’re not broken. You’re just … different.”

“That seems like a nice way of saying broken.” Her arms were crossed, her body language closed-off and defensive.

“No, listen to me.” She bit back a “look at me” or a “take your glasses off”. “Garnet, I don’t care if you never listen to another word I say after this, but I want you to know this. I promise, I swear on my mother’s grave… You’re not broken, Garnet, or defective, or anything like that. You’re not broken, you’re just autistic.”


End file.
